Test Rig and Procedures
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D – Live Pricing
Motherboard: ASUS ROG Crosshair X870E Hero – Live Pricing
Cooling: Enermax LIQMAXFLO 360mm Liquid CPU Cooler - Live Pricing
Noctua NT-H2 Thermal Paste - Live Pricing
Memory: G.SKILL Trident Z5 Neo RGB Series (2x16GB) 6000MT/s CL28-36-36-96 – Live Pricing
Storage: Viper VP4300 Lite 4TB – Live Pricing
Power Supply: be quiet! Dark Power Pro 13 1600W- Live Pricing
Case: Primochill Wetbench - Live Pricing
OS: Windows 11 Pro 64-bit - Live Pricing
Our Testing Procedures |
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3DMark |
All 3DMark-based tests are done using the most recent version. We test using all three versions of Fire Strike, Both Time Spy and Time Spy Extreme, Speed Way, and Steel Nomad. Tests to look at ray tracing performance are done with Port Royal when supported and for Nvidia cards that support DLSS, the DLSS subtest is also done at 4k with the performance setting tested at all DLSS versions that the card supports. AMD cards are tested with the FSR test at 4k and at all detail levels. |
Cyberpunk 2077 |
Tested using the built-in benchmark at medium and ultra detail levels. This is run at 1080p, 1440p, and 4k resolutions. All tests are run with Super Sampling off and then tested again with SS on with whatever the card supports. |
Borderlands 3 |
Built-in benchmark testing with the ultra detail setting and medium detail setting, done at full screen with default settings at 1080p, 1440p, and 4k on DX11. |
Metro Exodus |
Using built-in benchmark, testing at ultra and normal details at 1080p, 1440p, and 4k. |
Watch Dogs: Legion |
Built-in benchmark testing at ultra and high details. Tested at 1080p, 1440p, and 4k. I also do RTX and DLSS testing on Nvidia cards at 4K using the Ultra detail settings as a base as well. |
Ghost Recon Breakpoint |
Built-in benchmark tested at 1080p, 1440p, and 4k with the Ultra and Medium detail settings. Texture quality is always set to high to keep tests consistent between cards. |
Far Cry 6 |
Built-in benchmark tested at 1080p, 1440p, and 4k with the Ultra and Medium detail settings. |
Total War: Pharaoh Medium |
Built-in benchmark using the Battle Benchmark setting. Tested at 1080p, 1440p, and 4k at both high and ultra detail settings |
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl |
Tested using a frameview capture while walking around outside. Tests are done at medium and epic details at 1080p, 1440p, and 4k resolutions. |
GeekbenchAI |
GeekbenchAI tested using the ONNX DirectML setting. |
Procyon |
AI Image Generation Benchmark - Stable Diffusion XL |
Blender |
Using the standard Blender Benchmark I run the test using the Blender 4.3.0 version which tests using the Monster, Junkshop, and Classroom tests. |
Passmark Performance Test 11 |
Test using the GPU Compute Score |
V-Ray 5.02 and 6 |
V-Ray 5 benchmark us run with CUDA and RTX settings on cards that support it |
Power Testing |
Using a PCat v2 to monitor power between the PCIe slot and the card as well as power through the power cables I test the peak power when running ADIA64, 3DMark Speed Way, 3DMark Time Spy Extreme, FarCry 6 at 4k and Ultra Detail, Cyberpunk 2077 at 4K and Ultra detail, GeekbenchAI, and Procyon's AI Image Generation Benchmark - Stable Diffusion XL test. The results are then averaged for one result and the highest result is noted as well. |
Watt per Score |
The 3DMark Time Spy Extreme score is divided by the card's average power wattage result to give us an overall power efficiency to performance score. |
Noise Testing |
Our Noise testing is done using a decibel meter 18 inches away from the video card on the bottom/fan side of the card. We test at 50% and 100% fan speeds as well as a third test while under load using AIDA64's stress test. This is done using a Protmex PT02 Sound Meter that is rated IEC651 type 2 and ANSI S1.4 type 2. Tests are done set weighted to A and set to a slow response using the max function. The ambient noise level in the testing area is 33.3 decibels. |
Temperature Testing |
Using AIDA64, the GPU stress test is run for 30 minutes or until the result has leveled off. The test is run twice, once with the stock fan profile and a second time with 100% fan speed. During this, I also document the 100% fan speed RPM and document the delta between the fan profile and 100% fan speed as well as get thermal images. GPU hotspot and memory temps are also documented if the card has sensors for them |
Temperature Delta |
The 100% fan speed temperature result is deducted from the stock fan profile temperature result to get the delta between the two. |